GTA 2 gets ray tracing: RTX Remix mod brings the classic game to life
- » GTA 2 gets ray tracing: the RTX Remix mod has revived the classic game
- The gabdeg mod added ray tracing to GTA 2 via RTX Remix
- Support for dynamic lighting, day-night cycle, and 60 fps
Available for free on GitHub, demo by Jacob Freeman
The game GTA 2, released in October 1999 by the British studio DMA Design (known as Rockstar North since 2002), has received a visual update nearly three decades later. The modder known as gabdeg adapted Nvidia's RTX Remix platform, which allows for ray tracing in projects originally designed for DirectX 8 and 9, and applied it to GTA 2, which runs on DirectX 6.
Technical capabilities of the modification
The new build is available for free in the GitHub repository. It features rendering compatible with RTX Remix, as well as the generation of light sources that react to in-game events: explosions, fire, gunshots. Additionally, the mod includes a dynamic day-night transition (Remix Plus mode) and emission maps for individual textures, enhancing the visual lighting effect.
All changes work in a wide 16:9 format, eliminating the previous issue of disappearing cars and pedestrians at the edges of the screen. Thanks to frame generation technology, the game consistently outputs 60 frames per second, and the user can adjust the intensity of light and time of day through a special panel.
Public demonstrations and availability
It is worth noting that since December 2004, the original PC version of GTA 2 has become free. Initially, the game was distributed through the Rockstar Games website, and since March 2020, it can be downloaded through the Internet Archive portal.
GTA 2 was the first in the series to introduce top-down criminal action, selling over 2 million copies. After it, starting with GTA III, the series transitioned to a fully three-dimensional format, leaving GTA 2 as the last representative of the top-down style.
Source: 3DNews
